This invention relates to articles of personal adornment, especially to rings for wearing on the fingers or similar jewelry having an ornamental or decorative, precious or semi-precious stone insert.
Previous attempts have been made to provide various articles of jewelry where the decorative portion of the jewelry can be interchanged. Typical of such attempts are U.S. Pat. No. 3,933,011, DiGilio et al, disclosing a ring having a removable and interchangeable jewelry mount. In the case of DiGilio, the ornamental portion of the ring is mounted in a rather complex structure having a keyed-interlocking mechanism which mates with slots on the jewelry to be worn. Variance of this construction may be seen, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,307,375, Estrin, where a ring is provided with an interchangeable decorative stone. This patent shows a different interlocking mechanism but still discloses the general requirement that the decorative or ornamentive piece of the ring must itself be permanently affixed to a mount which can then be interlocked or interlinked to the ring.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,218,894, Tropea, and U.S. Pat. No. 2,674,107, Bodnar, both show various forms of elaborated mountings which are interchanged to the article of jewelry. The decorative portion of the jewelry is itself firmly affixed to the mounting.
Where it is desired to interchange simply the decorative stone, as would be desirable in the case of precious or semi-precious stone which may be damaged by being permanently affixed or glued to an intermediate mount, the prior art has, in order to securely affix the stone, consisted of various methods of mounting and clamping the stone insertably from the bottom of the ring, or the inside of the ring, against a strong, securely retaining net, such as shown, for instance, in U.S. Pat. No. 1,182,534, Drigott, showing a gem-clamping device to allow such a mounting. More recent versions of such interchangeable mountings are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,733,579, Pfeffer, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,913,184, Hannan. In all these cases the adequate securing of the unmounted stone requires a relatively complex mechanical locking in order to secure the stones. The stones themselves are restricted by the makeup of the ring or the jewelry to being a relatively small size and the stones are not interchangeable by the user without access to jewelers tools and some degree of mechanical skill.
It is the object of this invention to overcome the current usage restrictions of these prior art mountings by providing a ring having a simplified mounting method such that the user may himself/herself replace the decorative component of the ring or the precious stone therein as desired from a selection of decorative or precious stones.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a ring interchangeable mounting method permitting the use of much larger decorative stones than has heretofore been possible.
It is further an object of this invention to provide a ring which will mount interchangeable decorative or precious stones without requiring that an intermediate, permanent mounting be affixed to said decorative or precious stones.
In accordance with the invention, a ring is provided having an expanded, cup-shaped bezel of a light but strong wire-like configuration and of a size conformable to the desired size of the interchangeable stones to be provided. There is also provided adaptably conformed to the ring a series of various precious or semi-precious stones which can be of any generally symmetrical or pleasing shape, having only the condition that the outer edge shall be sized and shaped conformably with the upper outer edge of the bezel. Affixed to the bezel by a hinged means is a generally spring-like cover ring which, being pivoted on its hinge, may be lowered over any of the selection of provided stones firmly by spring-like action grasping and clamping the stone at its edges or periphery to the bezel. This spring-like edge or clasping ring is further provided opposite to the hinge with a catch or securing hook which secures and use both by the inate grasping of the design of the catch or hook itself as well as being further securely locked into position by the spring-like action of the top ring for securing lid.
For a better understanding of the invention, as well as the advantages and novel features thereof, reference is made to the following description which should be read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings which show by way of example the invention embodied in a ring for use upon the finger.